Chapter Five: Buildings
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Chapter Sections:
Creating Buildings
When one of the StarShip Civilizations sends down troops to secure a planet,
the first order of business is to build a base of operations. In
small operations, the SpaceMen might use their captain's BattleJeep as
a command center. In more prolonged operations, the bases are huge
sprawling fortresses, several levels high with further levels underground.
Within the base walls are facilities for vehicle maintenance, weapon repairs,
and dorms for the SpaceMen. The walls themselves are usually dotted
with heavy weapon emplacements and built from fortified StrongCrete, capable
of standing up to an incredible amount of punishment from those who would
do it ill.
If you don't want to go to all the trouble of constructing a building,
you can throw up some walls and fortifications. These can hamper
enemy monement and give cover to troops and weapon mounts. For every
five inches of length and three Brix of height, the base cost is one point.
Computing the base cost of a building is not quite as easy. To
do this, measure the distance in inches between the two furthest corners
of the building (round up). Multiply the number of inches by 10 and
you have the base cost of the building. For a building with multiple
stories, compute the base cost of each story separately. Note that
catwalks, battlements, and roofs don't count as additional stories.
Here
are a couple examples of foundations for buildings you might construct.
If you have a ruler or even a string handy, it shouldn't take very long
at all to figure out which two corners are furthest apart. In the
first example, you would use the distance from A to F.
You could choose to split the building into two parts and pay for the C
to B part and the E to D part seperately, but if they're
connected it will always end up cheaper just to pay once for the whole
thing. You don't have to use the corners of the "bounding rectangle"
of the base - in the second example, you would use 2 to 3
as the furthest two corners, not 1 to 4. In general,
the larger and more nearly circular your building is, the more area you'll
get per point spent.
Buildings, walls, fortifications, and in fact any building component
(like doors, radar dishes, weapon emplacements) have five possible AV Ratings,
summarized on this chart:
| Building Armor Value Ratings |
|
| Rating |
AV |
Equivalent to: |
PointX |
| I |
1d10 |
Wooden shacks, huts |
x 1 |
| II |
2d10 |
Plastic, unmotared stone,
log walls, sandbags |
x 2 |
| III |
3d10 |
Concrete and stone |
x 4 |
| IV |
4d10 |
Goodcrete |
x 8 |
| V |
5d10 |
Strongcrete |
x 12 |
Once you have chosen which AV Rating you want, multiply the base cost
of the object by the multiplier in the PointX column.
Next you will want to furnish your base. Interior walls, stairs,
ladders, and regular doors are all free, put them wherever you like.
All parts of a base besides the defensive exterior wall have an AV Rating
two levels below the base itself (minimum AV 1d10). This includes
exterior doors, so you either want to avoid making very many of them or
you'll want to beef them up a little. If you want to strengthen an
object, multiply its cost by the multiplier in the PointX column in the
chart above, just like walls. For this purpose, consider doors to
have a cost of two points, and interior walls and stairs to have a cost
of two points per five inches. A lot of the time, you will want to
leave out walls and roofs so that there's room for you to get your hands
inside and move minifigs around. Make sure your opponent is aware
of where these 'virtual' walls and roofs are so there's no confusion later.
A ComputerBank should be located somewhere in the base. This
is free, but there should be one in the base somewhere. Backup ComputerBanx
can be built for 5 points apiece. ComputerBank security is very loose,
since SpaceMen aren't particularly bright and often get killed faster than
they can learn new passwords. It takes a full Attack Phase for a
SpaceMan to take control of a ComputerBank he has gained access to.
If one side gains control of all of a base's ComputerBanx, the base belongs
to them. If they miss even one, the previous owners still have full
control.
It is important to maintain control of a base! Only the side
with control can use base features like doors, mounted weapons, and Outstanding
Architectural Features (OAFs). If all of a base's ComputerBanx have
been destroyed, then all of the base's weapons fire at -3 Skill, all the
doors open, and none of the OAFs function. The lights all go out,
the TVs are stuck on the Weather Channel, and the showers only run cold
water. If you want, you can build an independent ComputerConsole
into any door, mounted weapon, or OAF for one point. That object
can now be remotely controlled from any ComputerBank by the side that controls
it. If enemies destroy or gain control of the base ComputerBank,
the object still functions for its original owners. However, if enemies
gain access to the ComputerConsole, they can take control of it even if
they don't control the ComputerBanx.
Vehicles may be housed in the bases. Hopefully, the doors
will be big enough that they can get in and out; otherwise they may only
drive around inside. Flyers
will require landing pads or runways; these do not cost any points,
they only require that some SpaceSlaves clear some land near the base.
Heavy weapon emplacements can be built in the wilderness for 12 points.
Weapons may be mounted on buildings or weapon emplacements the same way
they are mounted on vehicles, except that each weapon must be manned by
a SpaceMan. Refer to the Mounting Siege
Weapons section of Chapter Six: Siege Weapons
for more information.
Anything else you might want to put on a base is an Outstanding Architectural
Feature (OAF). OAFs are things such as drawbridges, portcullises,
elevators, cranes, extensible walkways, trapdoors, and other things along
the same lines. Players should argue between themselves to agree
on whether or not a feature should be counted as an OAF, and how much it
should cost. In general, OAFs should cost a minimum of 10 points.
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Destroying Buildings
We spent a lot of time going over a lot of possible ways to handle building
destruction, but all the rule sets were too complicated, too deadly, or
too stupid. So, when a building is penetrated by an attack, it's
entirely up to you to decide how big a hunk of the building to break off.
Depending on the type and strength of the attack, you might either chop
a little crack in the wall, knock down a big section wall, collapse a portion
of a building, or flatten a building completely. You and your opponent
are going to have to decide the matter between yourselves. We're
sorry, but that's all the advice we can give you on that subject.
Remember that if a section of a building is destroyed, the troops and
objects in that section are probably going to take some damage. If
the building section was destroyed by an missile or energy weapon, for
instance, there's going to be an explosion that does the building's AV
in Explosion Damage. If a SpaceMan is standing on top of a tower
that collapses, he'll take damage from the fall and from whatever rubble
lands on him.
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